Posts tagged “Soren Johnson”

Has Offworld Trading Company, the combat-free RTS about big businesses competing for a slice of Martian pie, now become renowned enough that we don't need to stick 'Soren Johnson's' in front of it any more? The Civ 4 designer's bullet-free strategy game always did a smart job of recreating the tension of conflict and agonies of decision-making within the world of science-fictional business, but if…

“Sid [Meier] didn’t know he was inventing a genre back in ’91 - if he had he might have been a lot more careful. He was just making it up as he went along.” That’s how genres begin. By mistake. Somebody creates a set of rules and systems for the needs of a particular game, and then either people adopt and adapt those rules. Soren…

After blasting off to space for financial strategy action in their debut game, Offworld Trading Company, Civilization IV lead designer Soren Johnson's studio, Mohawk Games, are coming back down to Earth for something more familiar in their second. 10 Crowns is its name, and historical turn-based 4X strategy is its game. Details are vague for now and 10 Crowns sounds early in development but publishers…

The most recent two episodes of the Designer Notes podcast is well worth listening to if you're interested in game development. In it, podcast creator (and Civilization IV designer) Soren Johnson interviews Steve Gaynor, co-founder of Fullbright Company and designer of Tacoma. Designer Notes is a podcast about "why we make games," and typically charts a designer's career, from the first game they played, to…

Last week I visited Mohawk Studios to speak to Soren Johnson. His short but impressive CV has one standout entry - he was the lead designer of Civilization IV, a game which I hold in very high regard. His latest project is a short-form sci-fi strategy game with no military component and, in fact, no combat whatsoever. Offworld Trading Company [official site] is an economic…

Offworld Trading Company [official site] is a competitive, multiplayer RTS set on Mars, but instead of fighting with lasers, players compete to dominate a fluctuating commodities market. The winner is the person who buys low, sells high and uses their gains to launch hostile takeovers of their opponent's companies. At GDC, I spoke to designer Soren Johnson (formerly of Civilization IV) and artist Dorian Newcomb…

Until their functional closure yesterday, Maxis were "one of the great PC developers". From the seminal SimCity and adventurous SimAnt, to the breakthrough The Sims and absurdly ambitious Spore, the studio made two decades of strange, thoughtful, risky games. One of the people who helped was Soren Johnson, who joined the studio in 2007 to work on finishing Spore. I was talking to Johnson about…

Offworld Trading Company is a combat-free, sci-fi real-time strategy game from the lead designer of the sumptuous Civilization IV. A great concept with a great pedigree – can it possibly be as good as it sounds? But enough about Snickers More Nuts, let’s talk about Soren Johnson’s new game, an Early Access version of which was released this week.

It's impossible not to be interested in whatever Civ IV designer Soren Johnson is up to, despite a disconcerting dalliance with wait/pay/spam social games at EA a while back, but even so his next project, Offworld Trading Company, is pressing even more of my buttons than I'd already expected. A real-time strategy game which isn't at all militaristic, but instead focused on colony expansion and…

Offworld Trading Company, the "economic RTS" being developed by Civilization IV designer Soren Johnson and Mohawk Games, now has a playable prototype available. The catch: it costs $80, its under NDA, and there's no publicly available screenshots, videos or comments to help you decide whether it's worth your time. The game's FAQ explains that they "intend the $80 Founder's Elite Edition to cater to people…

Once upon a time, Soren Johnson was the main brain behind Civilization IV. Now he has a mohawk. An indie mohawk. Also, he's making a game about managing a crazy intricate (yet disarmingly accessible) economy on Mars. Last time around we talked about how a Mars economy simulator even works, boardgames, and the current state of strategy gaming, and today we continue that discussion with…

Mohawk Games is an excellent name for a company. And so it is that former Civilization IV lead designer and Spore man Soren Johnson approaches me sporting the company haircut. It's a recent trim job for the old headshrub, he tells me, but he wears it well. However, the brain beneath the mohawk - the mind behind some of strategy gaming's greatest greats - is…

Soren Johnson is a clever man. He was a programmer on Civilization 3, the lead designer on Civilization IV, and then he moved over to Maxis to work on Spore. Now he's building himself a new home by founding Mohawk Games, a studio dedicated to creating "core strategy games".

Alec suggested we do Gaming Made Me - ooh - last Friday? Being RPS, we only got around to working out anything on Monday morning. It takes until Tuesday to realise how special it feels, and we should pursue it. Also, we realise that since there's only four of us, it totally means we're lacking a post for Friday. So we quickly drop a mail…

And the remaining fragments of my interview with Ex-Civ4-er Soren Johnson interview emerge as PCG republishes it online. Here he talks about influences, the future of games, Why Guns, Germs and Steel would make a rubbish strategy game and why he was attracted to work on Spore. He says stuff like... "It's a field where you're writing the rules right now. Some day 100 years…

The Interview I did with designer Soren "Ex-Civ, Now Spore" Johnson in December could be roughly divided into two parts. The bits which were not about Civ 4 and not about Spore. We published these in January, where we talked about the future of the PC being Punk Rock. The second half were the bits about Civ 4, which we publish below, where Soren talks…

Soren Johnson has many things to be proud about. Most gamers would argue that being the designer of the magisterial Civilization 4 heads the list. We'd probably agree. But if you go way-way-way down the Good-Stuff-Soren-has-Done document, beneath even things like buying an expensive round in a bar a few times and opening a door for an old lady, you'll find that he was the…